On a beautiful spring morning recently, my friend John and I grabbed the dogs and headed for the Hills. It’s been a long winter, and we all needed a good airing out – especially the dogs.  We ended doing a half-day hike at Buzzard’s Roost, just off Rimrock Highway west of Rapid City.

Rocky even enjoyed the view from Buzzard's Roost.

Buzzard’s Roost is south of the road, between Falling Rock – a popular hiking area; but be careful; a more appropriate name might be Falling People – and the Thunderhead Falls turnoff.

A couple of years ago, the Black Hills Mountain Bike Association built a great system of mountain bike trails in the Buzzard’s Roost area. The trails are well marked and easy to follow, even covered by a blanket of late-spring snow. I think there’s more than three miles of trails; some of them look to be pretty intense.

But John and I weren’t looking for intense. We wanted a great view – and we got one.

We followed the main trail to the top of the rocky ridge that juts out over Dark Canyon and Rapid Creek more than 700 feet below.  We could see the length of Dark Canyon with its limestone walls and twisting path. We saw the granite features of the Southern Hills on the horizon.
I was surprised to find out later that Buzzard’s Roost is fairly tall, 4,660 feet above sea level.

We hung out for about half an hour, made sure the dogs didn’t fall off the cliff, signed the book and headed back to the trail head. We didn’t see any buzzards. But a view like this is too good for buzzards.